Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Homunculi (for Diceless Dungeons)...

OK, no dissertation this week, just a little something for Diceless Dungeons; a sorcerous companion that can be magically fashioned, albeit with difficulty, from a forbidden tome that will only be found on adventures (a dragon's hoard perhaps)...

Click on the above link to get this creature (item?) in pdf form. But also read on to consider the special role of the homunculus in a quasi-medieval world setting...

Now, this ruleset doesn't go into too much detail about its
implied setting, and this is by design (the referee should be free to create
whatever they wish). However, it does suggest something vaguely medieval;
a place where magic is rare and, more importantly, widely feared and
mistrusted.That said, any magical writing is going to be exceedingly rare and probably forbidden, and while the homunculus so created offers obvious advantages, clever referees should avoid the tired assumption that magic (and
at the very least, magic of this
sort) can be practiced with impunity. All power comes at a price.

That being said, going about in public with a miniature demon on
one's shoulder is sure to attract the wrong sort of attention, and even the act
of hunkering down for days at a time performing strange rituals will doubtless alert
religious authorities! None of this has
anything to do with special rules and everything to do with proper role-playing,
which we've always maintained was diceless to its very core. So roll your minds and get busy playing!